Anarchy

Anarchy is a noun defined by Merriam-Webster’s as a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws

Sons of Anarchy

As I have gotten pulled deeper and deeper into my new obsession, Sons of Anarchy, I am intrigued by the name of the show.

The Sons of Anarchy really aren’t anarchists. They may act outside of the law, but they abide by their own defined rules and moral code.   They care about their families and their homes.  I don’t know anything about anarchists, but caring about home and family doesn’t seem to align with their behavior.  I imagine true anarchists would inflict suffering on their parents or kids with the same intensity and hate they do with strangers.

War on the Poor

Recently one of my friends on Facebook posted this:

What the poor really need is morals. The welfare state destroys the morals of the poor. Poor people in America live better than the middle class in most other countries in the world. The official poor in America have higher incomes and purchasing power than the middle class in the United States in 1955 or the middle class in Japan today. The so-called “poor” are ruined by the overflow of American prosperity. What they need is Christian teaching from the churches. But these same churches are mostly inept at actually preaching to the poor. Instead, they support the welfare state as a sort of proxy.

R&L: Why is the poverty line, in your words, a “virtually useless measure” of real poverty?

Gilder: Because poverty is not a matter of income but a matter of prospects. College students are regarded as impoverished, as are all sorts of single people who live with their families. The poverty line in a rich country like the United States is a meaningless standard. We have no poverty problem strictly speaking, we have a desperate problem of family breakdown and moral decay. (George Gilder, 1994, Freedom From Welfare Dependency)

I cannot express how offended I am by the hateful words George Gilder put together.  As someone who grew up poor and in a broken home, I realize that I may be oversensitive to commentary that blames the poor, but that doesn’t mean that I am wrong.

After reading this, I watched episodes of Sons of Anarchy from Season 2.  In this season, they are dealing with white hate groups. And it gave me chills, because the white power dialogue seemed to be a perfect fit for George’s spiteful words.

My full disclosure is that I am a single Asian American female from a broken, single parent home who was raised Catholic.  In other words, I am George’s most perfect example for being poor and spreading moral decay.

A Golden Wave

While on his way to scoring not only his second, but also game winning, touchdown, Golden Tate sparked a controversy that is still going strong.

If you haven’t seen it, you can see the play here: Golden Tate’s 80-Yard TD

And here’s what came out today: NFL may consider negating touchdowns for taunting penalties  

My reaction?

Are you serious???

I LOVE what Golden did. It was an emotional game and I feel like his touchdown rallied the team.  If you don’t like what Golden did, then why not have your defense stop him from scoring?

Whenever I think of football, or sports in general, they’re about what you do on the field.  You want to win the game or the match, but you also want to leave it all out on the field. That seems pretty hard to do when the league wants players to hide behind penalty flags.

Monday Night Football

I’m really surprised at all of the chatter revolving around the Seattle-Green Bay game.

I should mention that I was at the game, am a Seahawks season ticket holder, and the play happened in front of my section.  I couldn’t actually see the play as it happened so I relied on the reaction of the Seahawk fans around me to let me know if I should cheer or boo.  I immediately started jumping up and down and was screaming my head off.  I have not been that excited in quite some time.  (Ok, maybe since last week because we beat the team I hate more than anything else.)

I just saw the replay and am fine with how it was called.  If Jennings had intercepted the ball, why did he give it up to Golden Tate?  Don’t whine and complain if you’re not going to hold onto the ball.  Also, there was a tweet that said it best: ‏‪@ShaunDolence If Green Bay wants to be upset, direct your anger at Jennings. He is the one who decided to intercept the ball instead of knocking it down.

As someone who has loved watching sports since I was a little kid, here are my thoughts when it comes to winning and losing games:

1. If you’re not prepared to outplay bad officiating, then you’re not prepared to win.
2. If you blame a single play for the reason you lost the game, then you didn’t do enough during the other plays to win the game.

I say this as a fan who remembers Super Bowl XL  with a broken heart.  I thought there were plenty of bad calls but, in the end, the Seahawks didn’t do enough to win the game.

There are countless games that could be drudged up, but you know what?  Whining doesn’t change the outcome.

Golden Tate wasn’t going to let the win be stolen away at home on MNF and all that matters is this: Seahawks 14 Green Bay 12